It is about data from the annual Balkan Barometer survey on the attitudes of citizens (6.000 respondents) and business people (1.200 companies) of the Western Balkans, which has been carried out for ten years by the Council for Regional Cooperation with the financial support of the European Union.
The barometer examines aspirations and expectations from life and work, prevailing socio-economic and political trends and regional and European integration.
For the majority of the media, the results of the Barometer, as expected, were not a top topic, and those who showed interest brought, I don't know if rightly, to the forefront the fact that the support for European integration of the citizens of the Western Balkans (Albania, BiH, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia).
In three years, support dropped from 62 to 54 percent, and if it's any consolation, it's still overwhelming. The research does not deal with the reasons for the drop in support, but it is not difficult to guess that the toxic propaganda of local nationalists and Russian internationalists has a significant impact.
The decline in support for European integration becomes less dramatic when the broader survey results are considered. And they exude optimism and relativize the growth in the number of Eurosceptics in the Western Balkans.
For example, only 18 percent of citizens believe that their economy will never enter the EU, which is a decrease of 10 percent compared to 2022.
But the key fact is that citizens' trust in regional cooperation is growing rapidly as a good phenomenon for their economies.
This trust reached a record 82 percent this year, which is the best result since 2015, when the Balkan Barometer survey began.
In the previous ten years, citizens' highest trust in regional cooperation - 77 percent - was in 2016, 2020 and 2021, and the lowest (72 percent) was in 2018.
Regional cooperation is most supported by the citizens of Kosovo (89 percent), followed by Albania (88 percent), Serbia (86 percent), BiH (84 percent), North Macedonia (81 percent), and the lowest support is from the citizens of Montenegro (66 percent).
Almost every second citizen of the Western Balkans (47 percent) cites nationalist politics as the most significant disruptive factor in regional cooperation. And more than three-quarters (77 percent) of respondents agree that what unites the people of this region is more important than what separates them.
The biggest problems for the residents of the region are corruption (36 percent) and the economic situation (45 percent), and 46 percent of citizens are not satisfied with the possibilities of getting a job in their country.
That is why more than half of those thinking about living and working abroad would go to the European Union (as many as 61 percent of young people), while 22 percent would move and work within the Western Balkans. And just three years ago, only seven percent of citizens were willing to work in one of the countries in the region.
Business people in the Western Balkans have a somewhat "lighter" perception than citizens.
While the support of citizens for European integration is at 54 percent, the support of entrepreneurs and businessmen for that process is 64 percent (although it has decreased by seven percent compared to 2023).
Six out of ten companies in the region believe that improved cooperation in the Western Balkans is important for their business, and they see the lack of labor force (1) and brain drain (4) as the biggest obstacles in doing business (on a scale of 2,2 to 2,3). .
The majority of companies (57 percent) expect great benefits from traveling within the region with just an ID card, and 41 percent benefited from Roaming Free Western Balkans.
I didn't list this many figures from the research by accident. What do these data show?
I believe that their value is greater than the assessment of Majlinda Bregu, Secretary General of the Council for Regional Cooperation. Namely, she claims that regional cooperation is valuable in itself, instead of seeing it in the context of European integration, as was the case before.
There is no doubt that it is valuable. But European integration and regional cooperation are a finger and a nail, there is an unbreakable connection between them and they cannot be separated.
This is best understood by the opponents who, by spreading hatred, intolerance and belief in the impossibility of regional cooperation, cut off the region of the Western Balkans from the European Union and destroy any thought of European integration.
Whenever the neighbors in the region "grab each other by the throat", then the European Union seems hateful and hostile to them. Whenever they have partner projects from which citizens and business people benefit, then trust grows and the gates of European integration expand.
Although complete regional integration is a long way off, the research of the Balkan Barometer shows that the Western Balkan countries have successfully passed a major qualification test on their way to the European Union with their cooperation so far.
Believing that regional integration brings benefits is the first step towards another more important belief - that such benefits are also delivered by European integration. The Western Balkans is maturing and showing that it can be a suburb of the great European Union.
This is not crystal clear in the Balkan Barometer research, but it gives reason to believe that the awareness of citizens in the region is changing towards connection, cooperation and tolerance.
The delay in the permeability, and in some cases the abolition, of regional borders (by the way, one of the greatest values of the European Union) is probably a major reason why in just one year the number of people ready to change their place of residence and workplace and move from their country has tripled. to one of the countries of the Western Balkans.
If there is more political courage in the expansion of cooperation and partnerships in the coming years, even greater growth of labor migration within the region is possible.
The readiness of citizens and business people for European integration and the belief in the benefits that it brings will grow as the inhabitants of the Western Balkans benefit even more from the regional cooperation of their countries.
For that to happen, political leaders will have to change more and faster.
Their influence on public opinion is still enormous, but the problem is that three quarters (74 percent) of the citizens of the Western Balkans do not trust political parties.
It will take a lot of effort to change the citizens' belief that what businessmen build during the day, politicians tear down during the night.
Bonus video:
